By Jauhar Suleiman Salihu
One of the major perils of hate speech is the effect that leaves on a victim’s mental health. Victims of hate speech often become depressed, agonized, and even suicidal.
No one wants to be the person responsible for endangering someone’s mental health, or for lowering their confidence and self-esteem. Making expensive jokes about people’s sexuality, ethnicity, skin colour, religion and a variety of other aspects can lead to normalizing negative aspects, which is another effect of hate speech.
Hate speech also reinforces stereotypes and prejudices, which are very difficult to overcome. When stereotypes exist about groups of people, it creates tension among them. Tension can lead to an even more serious situation in the future.
In addition to this, the task of curbing this social menace of hate speech in our societies is not for the authorities all alone. It requires the efforts of not only the authorities but the entire populace. It is a common problem which exists among the people of different religion, ethnicity political parties and geopolitical zone, through exchanging fallacies, illusion and condemnation to one another in the name of achieving fame and progress of their class of belonging.
There is an undeniable fact that our diversities in all areas of human endeavors are naturally-oriented phenomena. Human beings are not created to serve as threat to one another but to serve as the wheel of progress to our conventional demands and mutual understanding.
If India with a population of 1.5 billion or so can have different religious groups and uphold the unity of their country then there is no basis for our disintegration. Nigerian constitution gives us rights to religion, to cherish cultural values, and participate in political activities.
Finally, by taking responsibility and ensuring that the words you use aren’t hateful or intended to incite hatred, you can be part of the movement to stop hate speech. Your contribution is important, you are important, and you can stop hate speech. Instead of becoming the person who hurts or angers others, you can be the person who ensures that they haven’t been forced to endure hateful words, actions or expressions. Let us react to any act capable of threatening our unity by referring the case to the right authorities not hate speech or mob action. Failure to do this is a clear road to the ocean of destruction.
Mr Salihu wrote from Faculty of Communication, Bayero University, Kano
